End of the line
by Ashrial
Summary: Oneshot series. The Hidden leaf has fallen, and with it the protection it offered. Hounded by hidden sound, Akatsuki, and missing nin, it is only the beginning of the end for those unfortunate enough to have survived.
1. Hinata: Falling sun

Summary: Hinata runs. Her muscles scream their fatigue, pushed past the limits of their endurance. She ignores them. She does not have time to stop, does not even have time to slow down. If she slows down they will catch her, and that will be the end of that

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

--

Hinata runs.

Wind whips by her face as she half leaps, half hops from tree branch to tree branch in the odd gait of a shinobi. Her muscles scream their fatigue, pushed past the limits of their endurance. She ignores them. She does not have time to stop, does not even have time to slow down. If she slows down they will catch her, and that will be the end of that. She runs.

Sometimes it seemed like she had always been running; her entire life a speeded blur of images and events she barely caught out of the side of her eye before she was past them. She has always been running from one thing or another, the disappointment in her father's eyes, the glare of her cousin, the duty of a shinobi of the leaf.

A branch snaps by her face, cutting a line of red across her cheek. She has countless such scratches across her body. They are all forgotten in her desperate flight, even the one painted by an opponent's sword across her ribs. She didn't, and still doesn't, have time to properly bind it. A strip of tattered purple torn from her jacket at least holds the majority of her blood inside her.

The adrenaline that at first had pumped through her veins is now long gone, along with the tired determination that had followed it. Now all she has is fear, fear not of what follows her, but of what will happen if she stops, of what will greet her then. Running is all she has ever been good at, and now is not the time to try anything new.

The shinobi following her are as near silent as a human can be, and make her tired footsteps seem like the falling of boulders in comparison. She cannot bring herself to care. Speed is all that matter now, all that has ever mattered. Stealth had not helped Konoha, had not kept it from being gutted and torn down by the combined might of hidden sound and Akatsuki's missing nin proxies.

Stealth hadn't helped Naruto.

The memory still brings a lump to her throat, still causes her eyes to tighten in anticipation of tears that will not come. She has long since spent them all. The memory of Naruto's death is still clear in her mind; the look of surprise on his face as a black and red robed figure had driven a palm into his stomach, fingers bent like claws, chakra blazing from their tips. The fingers had pressed against Naruto's stomach for a sickening moment before sinking in, oddly bloodless, as if they were molding clay instead of human flesh. The seal on Naruto's stomach had blazed, liquid fire running along it, testing its boundaries. The man robed in black's hand had twitched, fingers drawing together under Naruto's skin, and in one swift movement he'd pulled his arm back, ripping something red and fiery and blazing from his stomach. Naruto had simply stood, looking oddly perplexed, a chunk of his stomach missing.

That was when the blood had come rushing back, gushing out of the hole in his stomach in a wave of crimson.

_Naruto_. She couldn't say she had ever really known him, and yet he had meant everything to her. He was the reason she'd made it through the academy, the reason she had never quite given up. One look at his sure smile, and she'd known that no matter how bad things were, he'd never give up, and that she couldn't either. Gone. All of that gone now.

A glint of steel flashes at her from one of the rare shafts of sunlight that filter through the leaf canopy. She is moving too fast to change her trajectory, and far to fast to stop. The blurred outline of the kunai whiz inches above her back as she rolls on her shoulder under them. She is back up again in the space of a heartbeat, legs still churning under her. She does not have the time to slow her pace, if she does the shinobi following her will end this just as fast as the one laying in wait will.

Her hands form a seal, and she focuses the little chakra that is left to her there. It is a technique for beginners in the academy, the very first ninjutsu technique taught, its only purpose to teach students to focus their chakra. It had taken her half a day of trying all those years ago to do it correctly, and it takes her half a second now. She channels the chakra up from her locked hands, up, up, up, until it reaches her eyes and unlocks the power sleeping there. Her foot launches her off of a branch just as her eyes activate, and the world slows around her, its every detail captured by the power of her eyes. Leaves swirl sedately to the floor, a spider spins it web, a squirrel scurries up a tree. The power of her eyes had always scared her, and now slips away from her almost as soon as it is activated, too little chakra left to sustain it. It has served its purpose though, and though her hands shake from exhaustion, she throws enough kunai that it does not matter, the shinobi falling from his perch testament to the fact that at least one found its mark.

Though barely ten seconds have passed since she first caught sight of the kunai, and her legs have not stopped moving the entire time, the shinobi trailing her are closer than they were before. They have split into a pincer, their pace increased. They sense that she is growing weak, and they are not far from the truth. Constant flight for nearly a day now has sapped her strength, and she had little enough to begin with.

She can almost hear her father's voice in her mind, berating her in a tone that swelled with disappointment, one that she had cringed away from, knowing that what he said was true but not wanting to believe it. She can almost feel Neji's cool gaze, the words he was not allowed to utter encapsulated in that gaze, fury and hate and utter disgust that he had to serve her, an inferior shinobi simply because she was born to a different father. She can almost hear Hanabi's whisper quiet voice, always so soft and polite and brimming with smug superiority, a voice that told her without words that she was _weak_. A pathetic, spineless wretch of a shinobi who had by some freak of nature been born to the Hyuuga.

Her foot snags on a trip wire and she hits the branch with a sharp crack. Her momentum won't let go of her though, and she's able to turn the movement into a roll, coil her legs under her and spring away just as the exploding tags activate. The shock from the explosion grabs hold of her, and tosses her through the air like she was little more than a fly. Ground and sky trade places, branches snapping around her as she tumbles helplessly through the air.

The ground rises to meet her and instincts that have been bred into her bloodline since the founding of her house allow her to shove just enough chakra into her feet so that her legs don't snap. They can only do so much though, and keeping her conscious is not part of that bargain. She comes back to only a moment later, the world refusing to simply fall away. Shinobi are in the trees above her. In a moment they will realize where she is and that will be the end of that.

Her limbs throb with pain, and the slivers from the exploding branch have adorned her with countless scratches. She does not think she can move, and has even less of an inclination to find out. What was the point? They were right, all of them, her father, Neji, Hanabi. She had run as fast as she could away from them back in her old life, had tried to avoid them, but now there was nowhere left to run. She should have realized that: no matter how fast you run, you can never outrun yourself.

The shinobi have noticed the path she carved through the branches on her way down. They flit down with an arrogance that is not misplaced. There is little that she could do now to stop them.

The wound in her side sends a spike of pain carving into her chest. She grits her teeth and snaps her eyes closed. In the darkness behind her lids she hears the shinobi alight on the ground with quiet thumps. Soon this would all be over. This was hardly how a Hyuuga should die, cornered and desperate, and too beaten to even put up a final defense, but she had never been much of a Hyuuga. The only reason she had even made it this far was because of Naruto. He had never given up, even when he'd been half dead, and Neji had stood above him and told him that his fate was too be beaten time and again. He had stood and fought and _won_. He'd shown her strength, and she had thought that if she only followed his example she could achieve it too. But in the end even Naruto had been defeated, his life blood spilled out across the ground.

Leaves crunch underfoot as the shinobi move slowly forward. Their pace is not set by caution, but by the sure knowledge that she cannot run anymore. The sound stops as they reach her. Silence reigns around her, and maybe that's why she hears him.

_So?_

Naruto's voice rings with an unearthly clarity, one that tells Hinata she must be imagining it. She is about to die, and would rather not spend the last moments of her life arguing with a voice in her head, but she responds anyway. _You lost._

_And? So what if I lost? _His face rises to her mind, his half cocky, half arrogant grin plastered across it._ I gave them a hell of a fight didn't I? You really just gonna sit there and let them kill you?_

_I_…

The silence is broken by the slow rasp of a sword being unsheathed, but Naruto's face stays firmly planted in her mind, his half grin challenging her.

_I_…

Wind whistles around the sword as it begins its descent, swooping down like a falcon plummeting for its prey.

…_No_.

The sword grazes the side of her cheek as she twists, jackknifing her body so that the legs of the shinobi are swept out from under him. The very last of her shuriken leave her hand in a wide arc of steel that forces the other shinobi to spring backwards, nicking the legs of the slowest. She meets the first shinobi as he falls, breaking his wrist and collapsing his windpipe in the same movement. She catches the sword falling from his limp grip and brings it up in a high slice that sparks as it meets the blade of another shinobi. Blades flash between them, striking with the sound of anvils, sparks lighting their trails. It is over in a moment, the other shinobi losing an arm and a throat in a succession of flickering slashes.

She has no time to think, no space to breath, as the other shinobi follow the first two, attacking her from every side like ravenous wolves. They outnumber her, outmatch her, and probably are not nearly as wounded as she is. She gives them no time to ponder their advantages. The Byuukagen answers her summons when she calls for it, and with it activated they are little more than a mass of flailing limbs and steel. It finds the patterns in their attacks and coordinates her movements to match. They tumble past her in a stream of slices and slashes, and she rides above all of them, a lily blossom taken by the currents of the rapids, tumbling and spiraling but never pulled under.

Soon it is over. She stumbles and falls to her knees, the world spinning around her. The line of broken branches from where she'd fallen earlier form a corridor through the air, allowing the sun to come to rest on the circle of forest where she is. She tilts her head back and closes her eyes, Naruto's face rising to her mind again.

This time she smiles back.

--

AN: Edited 5/9/08 for minor sentence reconstruction.


	2. Neji: Bound wings

Summary: "Traitor." Once, a long time ago, the word had hurt Neji more than he had thought was possible. It no longer does. He has heard it too many times for that.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

--

Neji is as silent as a shadow and nearly as invisible as he flits from tree branch to tree branch, relentless in pursuit of his prey. Against a Hyuuga there is nowhere to hide and his prey doesn't try, instead opting for straight out speed. It isn't a bad plan, but his prey has grown tired, and Neji has not. Not that he could have slowed down if he had. The curse seal knows the limits of his endurance precisely, exactly how much he can be pushed before collapsing, and it knows too if he tries to lie.

His prey veers to the side, heading for the river, his frantic footfalls already beginning to lag. Neji keeps the distance between them constant. He rationalizes it as not wanting to get hasty and fall into an ambush, and the curse seal accepts this enough not to tighten the stranglehold it has around his mind. It is suspicious though, and the tendrils of his power slither slowly across his mind, seeking any hint of untruth, of lies.

His prey stops moving, and Neji makes a final leap from the end of a tree branch, landing opposite his prey, a river separating them. His prey stands in a half crouch, one hand gripping the sword on his back, the other a kunai. His body screams tension; a readiness to spring into movement at any moment, to run, to fight, to kill. It is something that Neji has seen many times before, and will see many times more. It is the look of a cornered animal with nothing to lose. His lips are pulled back into a snarl that barely shifts as he grinds out words. "Finally caught up to me, did ya?"

Neji's voice is steady when he speaks, as cold and strong as it should be for what he has become. "You have been deemed an enemy to house Hyuuga and an order for your execution has been called for."

"Traitor." Once, a long time ago, the word had hurt Neji more than he had thought was possible. It no longer does. He has heard it too many times for that._ Traitor_. The curse seal twitches at the mere mention of the word, but it is not to it that he is traitor, and so it subsides again, content with its grip on his mind. "You and the rest of your house turned your back on all of us, stabbed us in the back. Your very own village. What bought you? Money? Power? What?"

Neji cannot deny his words, and does not try. He is long past that. He closes his eyes. He is a Hyuuga though, and there is nothing that he does not see, as much as would like not to. His prey's lips twitch in speech. "Don't you have any kind of answer?"

"I am a Hyuuga. My duty is to my house and no other." The words are a tired old axiom that the elders like to make him recite when they grow suspicious of his loyalty. They needn't have bothered. The mark on his forehead is more than enough of a guarantee.

His prey stares at him with eyes filled to the brim with fury, perhaps unsure if he is being mocked, or if Neji is speaking in seriousness. It does not matter either way, death is death, fate is fate, and neither can be avoided. "I remember you, you know. We were in the same year. Hyuuga Neji. Prodigy they called you, a genius. Everything you tried you were the best at. I actually looked up to you, can you believe that? Neji the prodigy."

The curse seal throbs in his mind, anxious to cut down this man he has been ordered to kill. Neji doesn't move. He owes him enough to at least let him finish.

"They still talk about you. The few of us left; the last of your old village. You've hunted enough of us down to have earned the honor. What will I be? Once you kill me, how many will that make?" The anger in his voice is raw, and when the kunai in his hand twitches Neji is ready for it, a snap of his hand parrying the thrown knife and unleashing a flurry of his own. His prey's hands are a blur, forming seals that draw the river up into a massive wave, Neji's thrown kunai impacting the wall of water with a series of small and ineffectual _plops_. The water reaches a crescendo and begins to descend, a blanket of blue that makes it seem as if the sky was falling. The curse seal pounds against his mind, demanding action, and Neji knows he cannot put this off any longer. He whirls into the wall of water, slipping through as if it were no more than a thin veil, chakra fleeing his body in an arc that deflects the water to either side of him.

His prey doesn't have time to dodge, doesn't even have enough time to draw in a last breath before the kunai in Neji's hand lodges itself in his throat, ripping it open. The water falls, rushing to refill the river as the power that had kept it aloft trickles slowly out of the fallen form's throat.

Neji rises from the half crouch he'd landed in, the curse seal pulling back from his mind with the equivalent of a sigh, content for now. He closes his eyes and leans his head back, face upturned to the sky. Overhead a bird flies, wheeling and banking in an endless spiral.

"Twenty three."

--

_Neji takes the steps two at a time, footsteps like that of a ghost, a hand resting on the katana strapped to his back. Even here in the ruins of the Hyuuga compound he must be careful. The house shudders at the explosion of a far of jutsu, ash filtering down from its blackened walls. Neji doesn't allow it to slow him down. His mission is too important._

_Hizashi has his back to the door when Neji bursts through it, and doesn't bother to turn around. Neji doesn't announce himself. They both posses the Byuukagen, and such niceties are obsolete. Neji's breathe is ragged, but he reins it in when he speaks, years of conditioning keeping it polite. "Sir. I carry a message from the Hokage: she orders that you are to commit the entirety of house Hyuuga's forces immediately."_

_Hizashi is silent, the fires consuming Konoha filtering through the window, its orange and yellow light dancing across his face. Neji shifts, taking weight off of his injured leg. "Sir, this message is of the utmost importance. Hidden sound and Akatsuki shinobi have breached the secondary line and are running unchecked through the village. We must hurry."_

_Hizashi still does not move and Neji smoothes his face, wiping it of any expression. Something is wrong. "Over two thirds of house Hyuuga has not committed to battle yet. Without support the other leaf Shinobi will be slaughtered. We must hurry."_

_Another explosion rocks the house, and Neji sways to keep his footing, the wound in his leg protesting fiercely. He ignores it. "Sir, you must order the deployment of our house forces immediately."_

_Hizashi turns to look at him, the motion more fitting to that of a statue stirring to life than to that of a man of flesh and blood. His voice is low and cold, and carries more weight than Neji could ever hope to match. "Do not tell me what I must do. I know what I must do, and what I do, I do for this house."_

_It is Neji's turn to be utterly still, and he plays the part willingly. His eyes are locked with Hizashi's, and absently he notes that it is the first time that he has ever dared to look him straight in the eye. The hand around his katana tightens, twisting slowly around the handle, the indentations of its cord wrapping pressing against his palm. Neji makes a conscious effort to relax his hand and let go, his arm dropping to his side, fingers stilled. For a Byuukagen user even the slightest motion can speak volumes._

_Neji leans his torso forward slowly in a curt bow, eyes still locked, before turning and striding for the door. If he hurries he can still reach Tenten and Lee before they're cut off. He'd left them by the village memorial and together the three of them can make a decent last stand there._

_A single word carries over the distant sound of crackling flames and muted roar of explosions. It carries through the silence between the two of them, and stops the muscles in Neji's legs the instant it reaches his ears. It is a simple word, but one that uttered from Hizashi's mouth Neji cannot fight._

"_Stop."_

--

He stops by their graves on the way back. The curse seal would rather he didn't and shows its displeasure with a headache that makes it feel as if his head were in a vice, the two sides of it slowly being drawn together. He doesn't try and fight the pain. It is his penance, one that is long overdue.

The few beggars that still inhabit the ruins of Konoha like an infestation of rats cringe away from Neji as he passes by. To them he is a creature of mythical proportions, the blade in the dark, the hunter of those that once lived here. They have nothing to fear from him, but he does not try and dispel their fear. It too is his penance.

He dug their graves by the old memorial stone, the sudden jut of rock serving as a head stone for all three graves. The memorial stone is lined with the names of countless heroes who fell to defend Konoha, and it had seemed only right to him that his teammates should be buried beneath it.

The three graves ring the memorial stone like the petals of some perverse flower. He'd dug them in a single night, the smell of bloodshed and smoke still thick in the air, the curse seal a steady throb of pain in the back of his mind. He'd placed what was left of Gai and Lee in their graves and covered them with dirt until only a bump in the ground was left. He'd done the same with Tenten's grave, though he hadn't been able to find a body to fill it with. It had seemed only fair.

He stays long into the night, long after it has begun to rain, the steady drizzle of water against his skin keeping time with the tide of pain in his mind from the curse seal. He ignores them both, gaze lingering on the three bumps in the earth where his friends lie. Neither the pain of the curse seal or the cold of the rain is his true penance.

Three graves instead of four. That is his true penance.

--

Hizashi is standing in front of a window again; this time it is a view of Hidden sound, not Konoha, and instead of the crackle of flames the faint clanging and scraping of construction echoes upwards. Many things have changed throughout the years but Hizashi's voice is not one of them. It is as cold and strong as it ever was. "Your mission is complete. The threat has been neutralized." It is not a question, because they both know that he couldn't have returned if he hadn't.

Formality is one of the few graces left to Hizashi, so Neji nods and answers, though it is neither necessary nor his choice. "The target has been executed as per your orders."

Only the faintest dipping of Hizashi's head in a nod acknowledges Neji's words. His gaze is directed at the window, out towards the bustle of activity underway where the rest of house Hyuuga is to be lodged. Beyond that is the squat and solid buildings of Hidden sound, but Hizashi's eyes are careful to skirt around those.

"You've been doing quite well lately, haven't you….?" The delegate from Hidden sound is a slim and dangerous looking woman with a faint and pleasant smile plastered on her face. The expression is a mask, one that she has honed for years and probably has served her well up until now. Against the power of Neji's eyes it is useless. Everything is. "Neji, was it?"

Neji gives a curt nod, eyes fixed forward. Because she is not a main house member the only thing the curse seal demands of Neji is politeness, and that is a shield he grew used to a long time ago.

"How many kills have you made again?" Her eyes flicker across the mission scrolls that hold the names of those he's killed. From the pattern her eyes follow, the fact that they're unfocused, and doing no more than pausing for a fraction of a second on random words on the scroll before moving on Neji can tell that she's not actually reading them. She's mocking him, mocking those he's murdered, and there is not a thing in the world he can do about it.

"I don't remember."

She squints for a moment down at the scroll, as if she had suddenly found what she was looking for. All her posturing and subtle maneuvering are pointless here, before his and Hizashi's eyes, but she holds enough power to make them both dance to her tune without even trying. "This mission makes it twenty three I believe. Quite the impressive number. Almost a good third of house Hyuuga's total kills…" Her voice trails off and she looks up at Hizashi, though he is still looking out the window and his back is to her. "If only all your agents were this thorough. It would seem chasing frightened and scattered shinobi is too much for most of house Hyuuga. To someone less trusting it would almost seem as if you weren't putting all of your effort into it. As if you still held loyalty to Konoha. Now that couldn't be right. Could it?"

"The remaining Leaf shinobi are harried and cornered. They fight with the power of desperation." Hizashi's voice is strong and clear and not even the slightest movement escapes his iron clad grip of stillness. "It has proven more difficult than we foresaw to hunt them down."

"And yet, you know the location of their base camp. Again, to someone less trusting it would almost appear…"

"They are well fortified. An all out frontal assault would prove both unwise and suicidal."

"And effective." Her tone is light and mocking, always mocking. "What you said earlier is true. Though they are few and scattered, their desperation gives them strength. Hidden sound has lost nine curse seal marked shinobi in the last two weeks because of their raids. It must stop."

Hizashi's life has been a one of pride, one of leading, of commanding, of having his orders followed. He is too proud to ease the conversation to its inevitable conclusion, though he must know what it is.

"If house Hyuuga cannot deal with this problem, then perhaps our generosity was…" Her voice trails off and she gives an elegant shrug. "Misplaced?"

"It isn't."

"Good." Tiring of her game, the delegate from Hidden sound abandons the casual tone in her voice and strolls to the door, disinterested now that the game is over, only dismissal left. "It would be a pity to replace you."

--

It is easy for Neji to slip past the first line of trip wires and the exploding tags carefully hidden so that any shinobi that avoided the trip lines would activate them. The sentry hidden in the trees is only marginally more difficult. One swift movement, red spraying out, and the sentry falls, Neji catching him before he can hit the floor and disturb the quiet of the trees.

He crosses the sentry's hands over his chest, unties his headband, and wraps his still twitching fingers around it. It is the only solace Neji can offer, one that even he has been denied.

The fact that no alarm breaks the silence is testament to the fact that the other Hyuuga have executed the other sentries with equal precision. There are more traps before Neji reaches the leaf camp, but none that his eyes don't warn him of long before they can prove effective. The camp is a ragged slew of tents camouflaged into the surrounding trees and brush. More sentries flank it.

Hizashi is at the opposite end of the camp, but even so Neji can see when he gives the signal to attack, a simple twitch of his hand that preludes the slaughter to come. The curse seal's tendrils of power are like the unrelenting coils of one of the giant snakes that Hidden sound are so fond of, twisting and twining around his limbs, guiding them as if they were not his own as he slips into the Konoha camp in perfect concert with the other Hyuuga, a shadow against the darkness.

The two sentries are harder to deal with than the last one, but he cuts them down all the same, the curse seal delighting in every splatter their blood makes against the ground. He is past them in a moment, the kunai gripped in either hand trailing red, his pace unslowed as he crosses the bare ground to the first tent. Inside are seven shinobi, stretched out on the floor asleep. Neji pauses in the doorway. Two smaller silhouettes are curled up against each other for warmth. _Children_, the Byuukagen names them. _Genin_, his training brands them. _Enemies_, the curse seal damns them.

He stays poised in the doorway, blood dripping slowly from the tips of the kunai gripped in either hand._ Enemies_, the curse seal insists, the tendrils of its power twitching under his skin, impatient. It demands movement; demands that he does his duty, and in the end there is only so long that Neji can postpone the inevitable.

Slowly, he takes a step forward.

A siren cuts the air and the silence that had held the camp in its grip shatters. Hands fumble for weapons, sleep is rubbed from blinking eyes with the back of fists, and a shuriken is sent Neji's way. He sidesteps, his hand flickering out to send the already bloody kunai gripped in it at the thrower. Sparks light the inside of the tent as the shuriken is blocked, and Neji freezes in mid motion, the kunai he'd been slipping out of his holster for a follow up throw stuck in limbo. The sparks hang in the air, the lives they'd just started already beginning to fizzle out, but illuminating for a spilt second the face of the shinobi who had thrown the kunai in the first place. It is a face that Neji recognizes, but not one he ever expected to see again. It has changed with time, the soft lines it once had now sharpened through time and strife, thin wisp of hair escaping the bun that had always kept them in their place, once warm brown eyes now as cold as steel.

The sparks fizzle out and with them the light, leaving Neji only with his Byuukagen tinted vision.

A katana swoops towards his head and Neji acts out of instinct, ducking and pivoting under the blade, the hand with the kunai going wide and catching the shinobi in his outstretched arm, blood gushing against the side of his hand as the kunai sinks in. He shifts his weight, using the kunai planted in the shinobi's arm as a handhold to spring forwards, the already unbalanced shinobi toppling.

The other kunai clears its limbo from his holster, catching a shinobi in the shoulder and halting his attempts to draw his sword, hitting with enough force to make him stumble backwards. Other swords clear their sheaths though, and Neji finds himself alone in the middle of a room full of steel and anger. He catches the next attack against the back of his hand and turns it to the side, moving into the shinobi's guard, the heel of his other hand slamming into the base of the shinobi's nose and cracking his head back. The shinobi falls, but there are more to take his place, three swords coming at him at once. Neji twists, both arms going wide, their palms empty. Two of the swords miss by inches, and the third paints a line of red across his ribs. A sharp twitch of his foot and his twist is turned into a spin, chakra pouring outwards, slamming the swords and their wielders away from him.

His spin lasts only a moment, but it is enough. The shinobi inside the tent are scattered, the power of his technique throwing them into disarray. Only one is left standing. The fiery consummation of an explosive tag lights the world outside and throws the figures in the tent into sharp relief.

"I thought you were dead." The words are horribly inadequate for the swirl of emotions inside of Neji, but they are the best he can manage.

"I hoped you were." There are many things that have changed over the years and Tenten's voice is one of them, the innocent lilt from their childhood now gone, replaced with a steady calm. "I hoped the rumors were wrong. That it was someone else. Anyone else."

"I did to."

"Then don't do this." The look in Tenten's eyes has not changed, but she takes a slow step forward. "Don't do this. Fight the-"

"Enough." Hizashi's cold voice cuts between the two of them. He stands in the doorway of the tent, flanked by two other Hyuuga. "You are a Hyuuga Neji. Remember your duty."

The Leaf nin have regained their feet and surge towards the three Hyuuga, the two sides meeting with a clash of chakra and blades, the power of an entire bloodline pitted against pitted weapons and desperation.

Neji doesn't move.

The curse seal pounds against his mind, demanding that he follow Hizashi's order, demanding that he follow. It latches unto Hizashi's voice and echoes it a thousand times, the reverberations building on top of each other until there is no room left for any other thought. _Remember your duty_. _Remember your duty_. _Remember your duty_.

Hizashi turns from the falling body of one of the Leaf nin, a droplet of blood gathered at the corner of a cut across his cheek, his voice laced with irritation. "Neji. Attack."

A steady stream of shuriken and kunai spout towards Hizashi and his hands blur as he strikes each out of the sky with an inhuman precision. The barrage is a feint, the true attack following a split second after the last shuriken, the sword wielded in Tenten's hands a silver torrent that forces even Hizashi to dodge backwards to avoid. The sword spins around, blade coming for him in a horizontal slash. Hizashi catches it, the palms of his hands clamping down on either flat of the blade. A quick twist of his hands and the sword is torn from Tenten's grip. Tenten springs back, just out of reach of Hizashi, blood blossoming from the tips of her thumbs and streaking across the summoning tattoos marking her slender arms, a pair of kama slapping into her open palms.

She brings the twin kama to either side of her,and springs towards Hizashi, the twin kama cutting a vicious backhand in mirror image of each other, the two blades closing in a pincer inches from Hizashi's nose. He dodges back, the movement taking him out of the tent, Tenten following, duel kama leading.

Neji stands motionless through it all. The curse seal is a steady pulse of pain against his mind that makes it hard for him to breathe, much less think. He forces a breath past the crushing weight of the curse seal against his chest, air rushing through his nostrils, a clean wind that sweeps away the murky pain of the curse seal, leaving his mind clear for the first time in a long time.

It is only a moment. But in that moment Neji realizes what he has to do, what he should have done long ago.

The pain of the curse seal comes roaring back a scant second later, the world spinning around him from the sudden weight. He staggers forward, the curse seal twitching under his skin with every step, his muscles afire as it does whatever it can to slow his progress. He stumbles and catches himself against in the doorway of the tent, fingers fisting around the tarp, the rough weave rasping against his skin, sending splinters of pain back to his mind that the curse seal amplifies a hundred times.

A few of the trees on the edge of the camp have caught fire, and in the flickering light they cast the band of Leaf nin battle house Hyuuga. Both sides move in tune to the flickering of the flame, flitting in out of the shadows just long enough to attack before slipping back, wary of counterattack.

He straightens himself and walks out of the tent with a rigid stride, each movement carefully calculated and planned, weighed against the increasing landslide of pain. He does not have long.

Hizashi and Tenten duel under the boughs of one of the burning trees, embers of red and gold slowly falling to the ground, veiling their dance. Broken weapons litter the ground, and yet another falls to the ground as Neji watches, its mistress already summoning another to replace it, a three sectioned staff to replace the Kasurigama that fell. Tenten's left arm hangs limply at her side, the tenketsu points closed off, broken as surely as if the bone had been snapped. Tenten grips the three sectioned staff with her still functioning arm and twirls in place, the jointed weapon wrapping itself around her. Hizashi springs forward, blood leaking from minor cuts all along his arm, fingers straightened to strike with crippling power. Tenten plants a foot down, stopping her spin and reversing her momentum, the three sectioned staff uncoiling like a snake, snapping at Hizashi. He reigns up short, the staff passing inches in front of his eyes.

Hizashi does not bother to turn at Neji's arrival, does not bother to acknowledge it in any way except for a slight tilt of the head and the cold snap to his voice. "Enough. You've finally arrived. Finish her."

Neji continues his slow walk past Hizashi's shoulder, his eyes finding Tenten's. They have only a quiet tiredness to them, the weary resignation of one that realizes they will lose and cannot do a thing in the world about it. The curse seal wracks Neji's mind with a pain he did not think was possible, writhing under his skin, furious beyond human comprehension with a hate that it has borne since the founding of the branch house, a hate that Neji knows he cannot win against. His foot comes down, and he throws all his weight against it, springing backwards and twisting, the kunai in his hand cutting a swath through the air.

For all the perfect vision that the Byuukagen grants Hizashi he does not see this move coming, and the hand he brings up in a block is not positioned _perfectly_. The kunai carves through three of his fingers, slicing them off almost at the knuckle. Neji and Hizashi's clash is swift and brutal and ends with Neji's hands wrist deep in blood, the warm and red substance pumping out of the side of Hizashi's neck in uneven spurts.

Hizashi's all seeing eyes stare up at him, the life already draining from them. Neji is careful to enunciate clearly, so that even if the sound of his voice is lost to Hizashi he can still read his lips. "No."

Hizashi's lips flutter and Neji twists the kunai, ending that sentence before it can begin.

Neji levers himself up, tottering uncertainly, his eyeballs scorching the inside of his skull, burning with a flame that is white hot. His limbs give a final twitch and fail him. Tenten catches him in one armed grip before he can hit the ground, lowering him slowly, her voice holding some of its old innocence again. "Why?"

His mouth is numb and tastes of blood, but Neji forces out the words all the same. "One of you asked me to kill my teammates. The other didn't."

Tenten smiles sadly and leans forward, her cool lips pressing against his forehead, a balm against the heat rushing through Neji's body like a fever. "Fly free."

Fire courses up Neji's limbs, the final duty of the curse seal, reducing his body to ash. The final thought in Neji's mind before the fire reaches it is a simple one, one that fills him with a joy that makes even the fire pause for an instant.

_My choice_.

The wind lifts up his ashes, carrying them aloft with it as it spirals upwards to meet the wings of a bird that wheels and banks in an endless spiral. The bird's wings flap twice, ending its spiral and flying towards the horizon.

--

AN: edited 5/11/08 minor sentence issues fixed.


End file.
